This webinar, "Double Materiality in Practice", provides a comprehensive guide to understanding and implementing double materiality assessments, focusing on the practical steps involved. It emphasizes that materiality is about identifying the most important sustainability issues for a company, considering both its impact on the environment and society, as well as the financial effects on the business. 

Our experts explain that double materiality combines impact materiality (the company's impact on the world) and financial materiality (the financial effects of sustainability risks and opportunities on the company). The discussion moves beyond the "why and what" to focus on "how" to conduct a double materiality assessment, which includes four phases: setup, data collection, analysis, and reporting. Key components of the setup phase include establishing internal alignment, mapping stakeholders, assessing the value chain, and setting materiality thresholds. The data collection phase involves identifying and listing relevant sustainability matters and their associated impacts, risks, and opportunities. The analysis phase focuses on scoring and consolidating material topics. The reporting phase includes describing the process and outcomes, linking them to strategy, and considering the need for assurance.

The webinar also emphasizes the importance of stakeholder engagement throughout the entire process, and the need for documentation, transparency and a fit-for-purpose approach. The presenters note that while the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) in Europe requires double materiality assessments, the specific implementation is left to companies, meaning that companies need to come up with a methodology that works for them. Finally, the presenters discuss key questions around frequency of assessments, pre-work, timelines, and finding the right approach, highlighting that it's important to get buy-in from the top and cross-functional support.

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